Nov. 8, 2017
06:04 pm JST

Nov. 8, 2017
06:54 pm JST

actually most of it would be coming by boat, eg Korean fishing boat has a short rendezvous with a Japanese fishing boat, J fishing boat comes home to off load its fish and gold hidden within. How many J fishing boats would get pulled over and inspected by J customs!? very few id say

Nov. 8, 2017
07:00 pm JST

So how exactly does this work? You sell gold in Japan and also get 8% sales tax? Why is that? If you bring in lets say euros or dollars and sell that in Japan you're not getting any sales tax added. This is just a stupid rule set up by gov't and people are taking advantage of it.

Nov. 8, 2017
09:49 pm JST

Nov. 8, 2017
10:28 pm JST

So how exactly does this work? You sell gold in Japan and also get 8% sales tax. Why is that?

When you buy gold here, consumption tax is included in the price.

When you sell it, the buyer pays you consumption tax on the sale.

I believe the initial purchase tax is supposed to go to the government coffers, and the cost is essentially supposed to pass through to the final end ‘user’.

But as smugglers never bought it here in the first place, but overseas in places where the tax does not apply, then they only paid market price, but receive consumption tax on top of it when they sell on.

Another legal way to use this is to buy gold before the next consumption tax hike, and sell it after. You keep the difference in the before and after rates. So long as market moves don’t cancel that out difference in the before/after rates. For smugglers though, the higher consumption tax rate goes, the higher the incentive to smuggle.

If you bring in lets say euros or dollars and sell that in Japan you're not getting any sales tax added.

Money versus non-money I guess.

This is just a stupid rule set up by gov't and people are taking advantage of it.

Yes indeed. No consumption tax on gold = no incentive to smuggle = no smuggling = no need to worry about enforcement. Not sure who the victims are in all this...

I guess it is tricky because if you do turn your gold into jewelry then yes you are consuming it, rather than using it as a vehicle for speculation or as money. And people would complain about ‘luxury’ gold jewelry products being exempt from consumption tax...

Curious about how this is dealt with in other countries with flat rate sales taxes.

Nov. 9, 2017
01:58 am JST

Nov. 9, 2017
06:29 am JST

Nov. 9, 2017
08:29 am JST

Governments are not happy unless they get their cut of every transaction made. It is a legalized mafia per se. In this case however, bringing in such large volumes of gold with the intent to defraud (as the buyer is paying tax to the smuggler that is never paid to the government). I agree that this is in fact a crime as the purchaser of the gold is being made to pay an 8% premium to the smuggler.

Nov. 9, 2017
02:17 pm JST

Nov. 9, 2017
06:33 pm JST

What countries allow passengers to bypass security checks like this?\

I fly out of the USA all the time without going through any scanners. Opt for the pat-down and there are parts which aren't checked. Unlike other countries, I've never felt "groped" during the US pat downs.

Nov. 9, 2017
09:33 pm JST

Nov. 10, 2017
03:21 pm JST

Heathrow makes everyone go through a metal detector, then if like me you have a stent, you have to go through the full-body X-ray scan too. I elected for the pat-down a couple of years ago so two members of staff eventually turned up and took me to a small room with a stand and a pair of handlebars. They put on rubber gloves, so I said "do what you have to, but I am not going through the X-ray". Ultimately they relented and filled in their paperwork, but I thought, "what a hassle!"

So kurispusu, you are saying I could have been carrying a bar of gold then?

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